Tropical deforestation slows by 36% in 2025

In 2025, the rate of tropical deforestation worldwide slowed after record highs. Losses amounted to 4.3 million hectares, a 36% decrease from the previous year, according to the Minsk-Novosti news agency.

This decline is largely due to Brazil's efforts to curb deforestation. However, global deforestation still exceeds the global target of halting forest loss by 2030 by 70%.

The main cause of forest loss is the expansion of agricultural land. In Brazil, Bolivia, and Indonesia, land is being cleared for export crops, while in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it's being converted to subsistence farming.

Global forest loss (including ecosystems outside the tropics) has decreased by 14%. However, climate change is increasingly impacting tree health.

In Canada, the summer of 2025 saw the second-worst fire season on record. The volume of boreal forests burned over the past three years was approximately five times higher than the average for the previous 20 years.

According to experts, forests continue to act as carbon sinks, but increasingly frequent fires and droughts are increasingly turning them into sources of carbon dioxide emissions